Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: Chart Year Breaks

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JMD1961
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 8:45am \| IP Logged

Hello fellow members. I'm seeking your opinions on
something pertaining to a personal project I'm working
on.

The project itself is nothing spectacular. A typical
calculating of a year's biggest hits using my own point
system. What I want to ask your help on is where should
I place those records that crossover from the end of one
year to the beginning of the next. I've seen this done
various ways, and all have had their individual strengths
and weaknesses.

For instance, the Whitburn way is to place the track into
the year where it REACHES its peak position. In most
cases, that works just fine, but there are some things
that make this method questionable. The biggest example
is, of course, the Monkees' "I'm A Believer", which
becomes the #1 hit of 1966 using it. The issue is that
the track only spent 4 weeks in that year, with 6 of its
7 week run at #1 falling into 1967.

Another method is to place a record into the year that it
earns the majority of its point total. Again, sounds
good. But using that method, "Please Don't Go" by KC &
The Sunshine Band ends up in 1979, despite having its
single week at #1 falling in 1980.

My own method was to use a various of the Whitburn
method, which would take a look at a track's entire peak
position run to determine placement. Thus, "I'm A
Believer" moves into 1967 because of the 1 to 6 week
split. In cases where a track splits its peak run down
the middle, I'd use the rest of the Whitburn method
(weeks in top 10, weeks in top 40, week on chart) and
apply it to each year's separate chart run. That method
has worked for me for the most part, but one thing keeps
tripping me up.

(Now, I get to show my nitpicky nature to its fullest.
^_^ )

The thing that I keep questioning is the first week of
each year. I know it should be simple, right? If the
date is in January, it goes it that year. Except for
these are not set dates. These are week ENDING dates.
So, tell me. Does the week ENDING January 1, 1961 really
belong in 1961 when 6 of its days are in 1960? (I told
you it was nitpicky.)

I keep going back and forth with this. "Ignore the
ENDING and just use the date." "No, place that week in
the year that has the most days in it." "That's not
right. You should split that week's totals in ratio with
the number of days in each."

I know this is all rather trivial in the grand scheme of
things. And EVERY method is going to create anomalies
that are going to make me question them. But I would
still like to hear from all of you. Because I know
you've all done your own versions of this project at one
time or another. How did you handle it?

Thanks in advance for your takes on this.

ChicagoBill
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 10:03am \| IP Logged

I've always gone with the chart debut date. I think of "I'm A Believer" as a hit from 1966. I can
think about what I was doing when I first heard the song. That gave me my first impression, and
to me, that's what counts. -Bill.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 10:21am \| IP Logged

IMO, if you're using a point system, then I'd say just go with the year it accumulated the most points. I do that with my own
personal projects.

As for chart dates, yes, they are for "the week ending", which means a chart dated January 1st really only has one day in the new
year. Also keep in mind that the data used to compile the published chart (especially in the "old" days) was likely at least a
week or two behind, thus you'd often get Christmas songs peaking in January, when they really peaked in December, etc.

LunarLaugh
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 1:04pm \| IP Logged

I actually prefer the way Bronson's Billboards Hottest Hits book handles the ranking year by year; the song's entire chart run
is considered but sorted from full year from January to December instead of the traditional November to November ranking of
Billboard year-end charts.

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JMD1961
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 1:35pm \| IP Logged

Paul Haney wrote:

IMO, if you're using a point system,
then I'd say just go with the year it accumulated the
most points. I do that with my own
personal projects.

As for chart dates, yes, they are for "the week ending",
which means a chart dated January 1st really only has one
day in the new
year. Also keep in mind that the data used to compile
the published chart (especially in the "old" days) was
likely at least a
week or two behind, thus you'd often get Christmas songs
peaking in January, when they really peaked in December,
etc.

Most points is a good way to go, to be sure. Especially
as later I intend to include points from Cash Box, and at
times they and Billboard disagree about what year a song
peaked.

The time lag is something I'd considered actually.
Thought about moving each chart back by a couple of
weeks. Finally decided to go with the published dates in
the end, though. Seemed less likely to screw it up that
way.

However, because of the lag, I had decided to continue
Joel's Christmas single year placement practice.

JMD1961
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 1:37pm \| IP Logged

ChicagoBill wrote:

I've always gone with the chart debut
date. I think of "I'm A Believer" as a hit from 1966. I can
think about what I was doing when I first heard the song.
That gave me my first impression, and
to me, that's what counts. -Bill.

I do use chart debut when placing tracks into my music
collection. But that's not my goal with my project.

Thanks for the feedback regardless.

JMD1961
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 1:50pm \| IP Logged

LunarLaugh wrote:

I actually prefer the way Bronson's
Billboards Hottest Hits book handles the ranking year by
year; the song's entire chart run
is considered but sorted from full year from January to
December instead of the traditional November to November
ranking of
Billboard year-end charts.

Which is what I'm doing (Jan-Dec), but using my own point
system. And I could be wrong, but I thought Bronson only
used weeks in the Top 30 to better compile an overall Top
3000 or something like that. I'm not (at this point)
planning to do that. Therefore, I'm using a track's
entire Hot 100 run.

Though, to be fair, my point system does reward weeks in
the top 30 a fair bit more than lower positions, so a
track really has to pile up a lot of extra weeks to make
an impact overall, so maybe Bronson had the right idea.

EdisonLite
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Posted: 25 February 2024 at 6:14pm \| IP Logged

I think most of us would agree that a song that crosses over between 2
years shouldn't have its points divided between years. A #1 song could not
make the top 100 songs of either year, that way!

I also (personally) wouldn't go with the year the song debuted. If a song
debuts on, say, 12/24/81, does it really feel like a hit from 1981? or 1982?
Although, I have to admit, the song was clearly recorded in 1981. So that's
one argument for also choosing 1981.

But I really think it boils down to 2 options:

*The year the song peaked
*The year that had the most weeks on the chart

Sometimes (many times), these 2 options will lead to the same year. But in
cases when it doesn't, I'd say it's based on personal choice. And you really
don't have to consistently go with one method or the other. (Personally, I
WOULD pick one method or the other, but that's me). But based on what
you said in your first post ...

let's say you mainly went with the year the song peaked, but you found an
instance, where say:

the song peaked at #1 on Jan. 10th 1973 and spent 6 weeks on the chart in
1973, but spent 12 weeks on the chart in 1972, you could make an argument
that it felt more like a hit in 1972.

Just my 2 cents. (And I'm just making up dates; I didn't check to see if they
were actual Billboard dates.)

CountryPD
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 8:51am \| IP Logged

This may not help with interpreting chart data to assign a "year"
to a particular song, but here's my two cents on this topic as a
radio programmer.

It became very clear early in my radio career how long it takes
average listeners to become aware and familiar with most brand
new songs. With a few exceptions (novelty songs or songs by
an extremely "hot" current act) during the first few weeks of
airplay just a small fraction of the audience is even aware that
the song exists. High familiarity kicks in around the time a song
is peaking on the charts and even more so in the weeks
following. When programmers realized that factor it led to the
creation of "recurrent" categories that continued to give those
songs significant spins rather than move them to "hold"
categories that "rested" recent hits before adding them to active
oldies rotations. Today those recent hits form the bedrock of
playlists for most current-based radio stations.

My point is that if you want to assign a "year" designation to a
song released late in the year look at the actual date the song
peaked on the chart then add several weeks thereafter. If a song
spent one week at #1 during the last week of December and
several more during January, the subsequent year is when most
listeners would likely place that song in their memory.

Also listening patterns become disrupted during the final weeks
of the year as stations play holiday music and run year-end
countdowns and special programming. So airplay for the regular
playlists were often disrupted. Also due to the holidays listeners
may have spent less time listening as they had other things to
do.

Unlike music & chart geeks the average radio listener is not
hyper-aware of brand new songs immediately upon release. It's
not the date when the song was recorded or when it was
released or when it first charted. It's the time frame when the
average person became fully aware of the song and has
memories corresponding with hearing it frequently.

Edited by CountryPD on 26 February 2024 at 8:55am

Brian W.
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 9:13am \| IP Logged

For my own year-by-year comps, I use peak date minus 10
days for the year-break point. I want to go by the actual
data gathering week, and ten days is a pretty good rough
estimate for most of the Hot 100. (Prior to the Hot 100,
they published the actual week ending dates on the charts
as well, and for those years I use the actual dates.) I
think during the 1990s, they actual did reveal their
current chart gathering week, and at that time it was 11
days prior to the issue date for the airplay portion and
13 days prior for the sales portion.

So on my comps, "Please Don't Go" goes in 1979,
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" goes in 1969, etc.

Edited by Brian W. on 26 February 2024 at 9:15am

NightAire
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 10:11am \| IP Logged

Piggybacking off what CountryPD said, if there are multiple weeks at #1 you could easily go with the last week the song was at #1 and the audience would likely buy into your date.

For me, I look at the MIDDLE date the song is at #1 as its peak week of interest. If it was #1 3 weeks in 1982 and #4 weeks in 1983, it's a 1983 song in my book.

I've had one music history fanatic catch me for not having a song identified by its release year... but no other listeners have expressed any concern on any of my dates.

Good luck!!

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torcan
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 12:29pm \| IP Logged

When figuring out my own Top 100 Favorites list of any
year, this is what I did:

If a song has fallen from its peak position in late
December, it goes in that year. If a song is holding in
its peak position or hasn't reached it yet, it goes in
the following year.

For example, if a song peaked at No. 3 then fell to No. 4
the week before Christmas (let's say 1986), then it goes
in 1986.

If a song is still holding at its peak thru the holidays,
it goes into the following year because it hasn't fallen
from its peak yet.

I don't really like the way Fred Bronson figured it out
because he's got "My Sweet Lord" listed in 1970, when
clearly it should be 1971. It only debuted in late
November 1970 and had only one of its No. 1 weeks in that
year.

Also, I know the week ending date might be based on 10-
day old data, but that's the best they could do at the
time so that's what I go with. So yes, Jan 1, 1961
belongs to 1961.

JMD1961
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 2:41pm \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

I think most of us would agree that a
song that crosses over between 2
years shouldn't have its points divided between years. A
#1 song could not
make the top 100 songs of either year, that way!

let's say you mainly went with the year the song peaked,
but you found an
instance, where say:

the song peaked at #1 on Jan. 10th 1973 and spent 6 weeks
on the chart in
1973, but spent 12 weeks on the chart in 1972, you could
make an argument
that it felt more like a hit in 1972.

I totally agree that a song should be given its entire
chart run to determine its placement. Though, later, I
intend to use just the points in each year for comparison
sake.

Your fictional example is pretty close to what actually
happened with "Please Don't Go". On Jan. 5th, the 20th
week of a 26-week chart run, it finally reached the #1
position. Six weeks later, it was completely off the
chart. So, 19-weeks (or 73%) of its time on the chart
was in 1979.

JMD1961
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 2:45pm \| IP Logged

Brian W. wrote:

For my own year-by-year comps, I use
peak date minus 10
days for the year-break point. I want to go by the actual
data gathering week, and ten days is a pretty good rough
estimate for most of the Hot 100. (Prior to the Hot 100,
they published the actual week ending dates on the charts
as well, and for those years I use the actual dates.) I
think during the 1990s, they actual did reveal their
current chart gathering week, and at that time it was 11
days prior to the issue date for the airplay portion and
13 days prior for the sales portion.

So on my comps, "Please Don't Go" goes in 1979,
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" goes in 1969, etc.

As I said in my reply to Paul, I'd considered doing
exactly that. And for the exact reasons you give. But,
right or wrong, the official chart date has become the
history. So, I made the decision to treat them as such.

JMD1961
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 2:58pm \| IP Logged

NightAire wrote:

Piggybacking off what CountryPD said,
if there are multiple weeks at #1 you could easily go
with the last week the song was at #1 and the audience
would likely buy into your date.

For me, I look at the MIDDLE date the song is at #1 as
its peak week of interest. If it was #1 3 weeks in 1982
and #4 weeks in 1983, it's a 1983 song in my book.

I've had one music history fanatic catch me for not
having a song identified by its release year... but no
other listeners have expressed any concern on any of my
dates.

Good luck!!

The problem I'm seeing with using the peak position is
that it doesn't always give a clear indication of the
popularity of a record. I'm seeing a lot of cases (I'm
working in the early 60's right now) where a track will
reach it's peak in the first few weeks of its run, then
drop just a few spots and meander around in that general
area for several weeks after that.

Though we like to think that a song is less popular if
its at #23 than at #20, the truth is that a lot of that
depends on how popular the songs around it were in that
particular week. There have actually been cases where a
record will make a backwards move on the chart, but
maintain its bullet because it was actually GAINING at
the time.

So, it a record peaks at #20 on the final week of the
year, but spends the next month or more between #22 and
#25, its possible for it to actual accumulate more points
after reaching its peak than before.

So, as I stated, no single rule will satisfy all
instances.

JMD1961
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Posted: 26 February 2024 at 3:08pm \| IP Logged

I want to thank everyone for their input. Though, we
don't all agree on the particulars, I know that we all do
this out of a shared love of music and music history.

I'm currently leaning toward placing a track into the
year where it earned the most points. Yeah, this is
going to cause some cases where a song will not end up in
the year where it reached its highest chart position.
And I know that will not sit well with some. Hell, I've
had instances when it didn't sit well with me.

But I've had those instances no matter what method I've
tried to use. And its because of those instances that
I'll stop and reconsider how I'm going to do it. And the
project stops and, in most cases, gets restarted. If I
don't make up my mind and stick to a method, I'm never
going to get this done.

RoknRobnLoxley
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Posted: 27 February 2024 at 7:27am \| IP Logged

I agree, put the record in the year where it achieved the most chart points. Rank it
there, but also calculate the rank of each year, using each year's separate chart
points, and put that info in there somewhere, either in parentheses or a side
note/footnote. So all info is recorded, history as it was !!

[Back in the day when I made my mix tapes, taping songs off the radio, I put a song on
my tape when it first made the local Top 40 countdown, or the first time I heard it.
Kinda like debut date. And I love those old tapes, without regard to when the song
actually peaked. They are now all automatically in my head, I know which song is coming
up next, ha.]

Search for other posts by RoknRobnLoxley

Vince
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Posted: 03 March 2024 at 3:25pm \| IP Logged

A possible option is to put the song in the year that most of its peak weeks are in. So for example, a song like "I'm A Believer" would go in 1967 since 6 of 7 weeks were at #1 were in 1967. But "Physical " would go in 1981 since 6 of 10 weeks at #1 were in 1981. If the song split evenly then go with year it had the most point.

Edited by Vince on 03 March 2024 at 3:26pm

hellogator
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Posted: 11 March 2024 at 7:56am \| IP Logged

ChicagoBill wrote:

I've always gone with the chart
debut date. I think of "I'm A Believer" as a hit from
1966. I can think about what I was doing when I first
heard the song. That gave me my first impression, and
to me, that's what counts. -Bill.

My only concern with debut date is that it isn't how we
remember it. I saw a book listing the best-selling albums
of all-time and it was organized by decade, but it used
the debut date, so it claims that Pink Floyd "The Wall"
was one of the best selling albums of the 70's. I was
shocked to see that.

I also played music trivia during a Disney Cruise, and I
kept messing up the dates because I had no idea "Ride
Like The Wind" by Christopher Cross was released in 1979,
because I never heard it once until 1980.
There were quite a few songs I missed because the debut
date was the year prior to when it was very popular.

Edited by hellogator on 11 March 2024 at 7:57am

ChicagoBill
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Posted: 11 March 2024 at 10:09am \| IP Logged

I have a unique perspective of relating music to dates. I took over an ongoing record store in 1971
that opened in 1941, and I took it all the way up to 1994. We had a subscription to Billboard almost
that entire time. In order to be competitive, I had to jump on new releases faster than the other
record outlets on the northwest side of Chicago. I couldn't rely on the salesmen from record
companies to know their new releases. That's where Billboard came in. We also reported our exact
sales to WLS, WCFL, and others including trade publications. -Bill.

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